Many/most online personalities are frauds. Being genuine is exceptionally boring and unprofitable. Being hyped so often, always taking things to their extreme, being exceptionally provocative, etc is exhausting but the meat and potatoes of the digital world.<p>I have seen good creators reach for money and completely invert their messaging, identity, etc. I have seen the money folks drop the facade and become completely normal people.<p>Faking sincerity is big business, and if your core audience is mostly children it's also startlingly easy.<p>The most popular "hot tub" streamer on Twitch, before she went down her current path, was a phenomenal cosplayer, but I assume she makes 100x or 1000x what she did then. On the flipside, there are a few retired pornstars on Twitch who stream themselves gaming to...practically no one.<p>A popular and highly controversial political streamer saw that streamers on the other side of the political spectrum saw more financial success, and inverted his persona to match.<p>And then of course you have the litany of streamers and youtubers (even one of the most popular female streamers) forced into "retirement" because their decade or more of awful behavior comes to light.<p>Do not idolize streamers, and, by God, do not let your children idolize them.
I've always been sus of his content it seems to all be gambling, selling product, or sanitized hunger games style contests that pit struggling content creators against each other targeted at a young audience.
What works for me most of the time on youtube is to just avoid clicking on videos where people put their faces on the video thumbnail, those things always make me angry when I see them. Fortunatly youtube stoped showing me suggestions on the frontpage because I disabled watch history, so I only see the thumbnails on the sidebar when watching a video.
Can someone provide a tl;dw? I don't have time to watch a 53min video, and it's tough to skip around the way one might in a structured article. Curious what the main claims are?
Not my cup of tea personally, but I recommend watching his interview with Lex Fridman for some behind the scenes insight. He comes across as incredible smart and knows exactly what he's doing. Also not afraid to re-invest millions of dollars into producing these videos. Obviously it's very much a for-profit endeavour. Not sure, don't think he's fooling anyone and his accomplishments deserve at least some respect I think.
TLDR:<p>You really should watch the whole video.<p>He basically uses the same methods as cult leaders (e.g. Trump) to capture an audience and turn them into loyal followers, with promises of success, rewards, and in-group messaging (like MAGA hats). He uses brainwashing techniques. He is deceptive, humiliation, selective recognition, and so on.<p>And he's using those techniques on a teenage audience that wouldn't know better, without parental supervision.<p>And YouTube profits heavily from it, so their oversight is financially compromised.<p>If you only have a few minutes, start watching at 14:00, and decide for yourself whether this is criminal behavior.